Schiappa and Hewes’ study shows the implications of media in making the public more comfortable with people they don’t know and, in many cases, whom they fear. The goal of this project has been to fill in the historical gap between the watching of a television show and the change in attitudes. Wed-Locked is unique because its focus lies not with singular characters, but instead with their romantic relationships. I set out to examine the depictions of same-sex
relationships and theorize what, how and who they serve. Do the images intersect with characteristics the straight television-watching public find ideal in relationships? And in what ways do the images of same-sex relationships provide “modes of satisfaction” for both the LGBTQ community and the heterosexual community?
Through a show of governmentality, same-sex relationships displayed considerable markers of commonality with which heterosexuals could identify. Grey’s Anatomy’s Callie and Arizona received support from government and their community through an elaborate wedding display that mirrored traditional heterosexual ceremonies. And Desperate Housewives’ Lee and Bob and Modern Family’s Cameron and Mitchell received validation from their community through adoption and the creation of a very heteronormative, white, two-parent, suburban, breadwinner/caregiver family. Here, institutional technologies connected to marriage and adoption cemented the relationships and families as legitimate. Out of the four relationships that
explicitly interacted with government, the one relationship that did not follow heteronormative ideals—Glee’s Santana and Brittany—lacked government support, which, in that case, was public school.
One way Santana and Brittany challenged heteronormative ideals was that they were not “100 percent gay.” However, it wasn’t just government that did not support such sexual fluidity. The community of people interacting with the same-sex couples followed suit. Four out of the five women discussed were sexually fluid, having relationships with both women and men. And they also bore the brunt of negative policing. Santana, Callie and The Good Wife’s Kalinda experienced their colleagues, friends and lovers pathologizing them and/or challenging what it takes to be a “better” lesbian. I termed the characters who policed “societal surrogates.” Societal surrogates function as stand-ins for society, bringing reactions, questions and/or commonly-held societal values to a situation or character. Meanwhile, the men were largely what I call “the stable gays” in that they did not question or struggle with their same-sex attractions. This one- dimensional depiction upheld the binary-focused sexual rigidity society places on men. This was especially apparent when Glee’s Kurt got angry at Blaine for his brief foray into bisexuality. Ultimately, the societal surrogates with whom the men interacted rewarded the sexual rigidity (nay, stability). In two of the three gay male relationships, the societal surrogates commodified the men’s gayness. Lee and Bob’s gayness was used to uplift a heterosexual child and Cameron and Mitchell’s gayness was used to diversify a heterosexual business.
While women experienced negative policing for not serving the sexual label binary, heteronormative power expanded its reach to ensure women and men conformed to
heteronormativity in other ways. How the shows displayed everyday roles, appearances and sex acts kept the same-sex relationships comfortably within heteronormative standards. Both the
same-sex male relationships and the same-sex female relationships maintained a relationship model where one partner was masculinized and the other partner was feminized. Callie, Santana and Kalinda embodied the masculine roles by having a lack of emotional expression, espousing self-protection and independence, and focusing on “doing,” especially through sex. Meanwhile, their explicitly feminized partners—Arizona, Brittany and all of Kalinda’s lovers—sought greater emotional connection, more readily expressed emotion and were more focused on the well-being of their relationship. The men proved even more rooted in this gender binary. Kurt, Cameron and Lee’s roles found them easily expressing emotions while being depicted as caregivers and damsels in distress. Meanwhile, their masculine counterparts—Blaine, Mitchell and Bob—were more emotionally reserved and practical, as well as the providers and protectors.
Appearances intersected with the displays of physical sex acts and, ultimately, kept women, though they were in same-sex relationships, bound in service to the male gaze. Kalinda, Brittany and Santana demonstrated hyperfeminine caricatures adhering to western beauty standards. Callie and Arizona, too, when not in scrubs, opted for a traditional feminine
appearance. These appearances coincided with prolonged, intense sex scenes that displayed the objectified women further. Interestingly, the women interacted blatantly with an iteration of the male gaze different than the camera lens. With almost every woman character, a heterosexual man acted as a societal surrogate and explicitly looked at them as objects. I argued this
interaction creates a multi-directional male gaze where the straight man is acting as voyeur to the objectified queer woman, and his gaze cues viewers to look at the women in the same way. Meanwhile, the gay men’s sexuality, or lack thereof, consisted of barely-seen pecks on the cheek, two-second kisses and, in the case of Kurt and Blaine, two passionate kisses in one scene where both men remained fully clothed.
Throughout my analysis, I discovered how the couples maintained heteronormative standards through government, their daily roles, appearances and depictions of sex. Thus, I was not surprised when, in the end, the same-sex relationships forced heteronormative ideals onto heterosexuals. In typical heteronormative fashion, heterosexual women proved the receivers. Cameron and Mitchell’s daughter Lily experienced princess castles and princess parties while Bob and Lee’s daughter Jenny stayed in the home with a gender-appropriate hobby. Both girls also had numerous infiltrations of emotionality, as well as the color pink, and its connections to femininity (i.e. weakness). Adult heterosexual women did not escape unscathed as both men and women LGBQ characters pushed the idea of coupledom on the women to save their lives to varying degrees.
Throughout this exploration, heteronormativity’s power could not be denied. It seeped into virtually every aspect of these characters’ lives, from the institutional to the intimate. Heteronormativity’s pervasiveness fortifies Rich’s (1980) argument that heteronormativity itself should be viewed as an institution. She argues, “The failure to examine heterosexuality as an institution is like failing to admit that the economic system called capitalism or the caste system of racism is maintained by a variety of forces, including both physical violence and false
consciousness” (1980: 135).